Pentagon Concerned by China's Nuclear Ambitions, Expects Warheads to Double
Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart | Reuters
China is expected to at least double the number of its nuclear warheads over the next decade from the low 200s now and is nearing the ability to launch nuclear strikes by land, air and sea, a capacity known as a triad, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. The revelations came as tensions rise between China and the United States and as Washington seeks to have Beijing join a flagship nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia. In its annual report to Congress on China’s military, the Pentagon said that China has nuclear warheads in the low 200s, the first time the U.S. military has disclosed this number. The Federation of American Scientists has estimated that China has about 320 nuclear warheads. The Pentagon said the growth projection was based on factors including Beijing having enough material to double its nuclear weapons stockpile without new fissile material production.
Iran Nuclear Deal Parties ‘United in Resolve’ to Preserve Agreement
VOA News
A European Union official leading talks among Iran and a group of five world powers Tuesday said the participants are committed to keeping alive the 2015 nuclear deal that restricted Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Helga Schmid tweeted after the meeting in Vienna that “participants are united in resolve to preserve the #IranDeal and find a way to ensure full implementation of the agreement despite current challenges.” “All participants reaffirmed the importance of preserving the agreement recalling that it is a key element of the global nuclear non-proliferation architecture, as endorsed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231,” Schmid said in a later statement.
No Sign North Korea Reprocessed Plutonium in Past Year, Still Enriching Uranium, IAEA Says
Reuters
There is no sign North Korea reprocessed spent fuel from its main nuclear reactor into plutonium in the past year, but it seems to have continued to enrich uranium, the other potential fuel for atom bombs, the UN atomic watchdog said. The International Atomic Energy Agency has not had access to North Korea since the secretive communist state expelled its inspectors in 2009. Pyongyang pressed ahead with its nuclear weapons programme and soon resumed nuclear testing. Its last detonation of a nuclear weapon was in 2017. Since its expulsion the agency has been monitoring North Korea’s activities from afar, including with satellite imagery. It is “almost certain” the experimental 5-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which is widely believed to have produced plutonium for weapons, has been shut down since early December 2018, the IAEA said in an annual report here dated Sept. 1 and posted online.
US Officials: No New Environmental Study for Nuclear Lab
Associated Press
The National Nuclear Security Administration says it doesn’t need to do an additional environmental review for Los Alamos National Laboratory before it begins producing key components for the nation’s nuclear arsenal because it has enough information. Watchdog groups are concerned about Tuesday’s announcement, saying the plutonium pit production work will amount to a vast expansion of the lab’s nuclear mission and that more analysis should be done. Los Alamos is preparing to resume and ramp up production of the plutonium cores used to trigger nuclear weapons. It’s facing a 2026 deadline to begin producing at least 30 cores a year — a mission that has support from the most senior Democratic members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation.
North Korea Waiting for U.S. Elections to Resume Talks, South Korean Ambassador Says
Joe Gould | Defense News
North Korea is likely waiting until after the U.S. elections to reopen negotiations with Washington over its arsenal, the South Korean ambassador to the U.S. said Thursday. “I have a hunch that North Korea is is waiting for the November election in the United States, because we have only two months left until the election,” Lee Soo-Hyuck said Thursday at a virtual forum. “After the elections, maybe there will be a chance for the United States and North Korea to conduct a negotiation.” Lee also said Pyongyang, for the time being, has closed the door to dialogue with Seoul. Since the February 2019 Hanoi Summit failed to reach an agreement, the United States and North Korea have been mired in a diplomatic stalemate with minimal negotiations.
Russia’s ‘Slow-Motion Chernobyl’ at sea
Alec Luhn | BBC Future Planet
By tradition, Russians always bring an odd number of flowers to a living person and an even number to a grave or memorial. But every other day, 83-year-old Raisa Lappa places three roses or gladiolas by the plaque to her son Sergei in their hometown Rubtsovsk, as if he hadn’t gone down with his submarine during an ill-fated towing operation in the Arctic Ocean in 2003. “I have episodes where I’m not normal, I go crazy, and it seems that he’s alive, so I bring an odd number,” she says. “They should raise the boat, so we mothers could put our sons’ remains in the ground, and I could maybe have a little more peace.” After 17 years of unfulfilled promises, she may finally get her wish, though not out of any concern for the bones of Captain Sergei Lappa and six of his crew. With a draft decree published in March, President Vladimir Putin set in motion an initiative to lift two Soviet nuclear submarines and four reactor compartments from the silty bottom, reducing the amount of radioactive material in the Arctic Ocean by 90%.